Home games are the most important games to any team no matter what style of league you are in. You have the support of the hometown crowd and your team just has an energy about it that cannot be explained. You are playing in front of your friends and family and will usually play that little extra mile to try for that win.
The home game-day doesn’t just include the game. There are many pre and post game activities that can be done. Starting with pre-game, you will need to get your team fired up and ensure that they are ready to go. While warm up’s are essential, you will need to lay out a game plan and be as mentally ready for the game as possible.
Warm ups are an essential next step; it will ensure that you are ready to go and that the crowd gets a look at your team. It starts to fire up the crowd and gets your team feeling the energy and gets them hyped up and warmed up for the game. Then before the game starts you need to have one final “pep talk” of sorts to ensure that the coach fires up the team and has them all on the same page.
Equipment is less of a worry for home games as your equipment is usually already at the venue, and already in the locker room. One thing you do at home games that you don’t do at away games is have a pre-game rally of sorts. In high school, they were called pep rallies, but a lot of teams have small rallies or outings just to get the players in game mode and get the butterflies out before game-day. Team outings happen after the game, with wins or loses to keep team morale high and just to relax after some good hard play.
While a home coach needs to ensure that his team is taken care of, he also has to ensure that the away team is taken care of and has all of the necessities. Change room(s), warm up time, and access to necessary things like washrooms and even possibly showers. Some home teams even go an extra mile and like to provide extra equipment, just in case of someone forgetting something, or in case of equipment failure.
Coaches need to capitalize on the home crowd and feed of the energy that it provides the players. Not every game is a home-game, and when you are at home, you as a coach need to ensure that your team takes full advantage and gets the crowd hyped and keeps them hyped up throughout the game.
No home game-day ever goes perfect, and no team wins every single home game. The best home games are the ones where both teams, home, and visiting, can walk away proud of the way that the game was played, whether they won, or whether they lost.
